The speed at which people are beingdischarged following treatment for coronavirus has accelerated after the revised discharge policy came into force which could be reflecting in the recovery rate but?many patients who had recovered earlier were not even counted, NITI Aayog member Dr V K Paul said on Thursday. "Before the new guidelines came into force, we were discharging patients after some time based on certain conditions. But then the patients had already recovered," Paul said at a press conference.

Rajasthan Congress president and Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot has said that the Centre should frame a policy for providing financial help to the workers, daily wagers across the country affected by the coronavirus-forced lockdown. As part of the party's 'Speak Up India' campaign, which was launched on Thursday, he tweeted, "Due to the anti-poor policies and poor working style of the central government, poor people are facing problems in this disaster. The Congress has placed demands before the Centre for the salvation of the poor." "Today, the country is going through a challenging time due to the coronavirus infection. The poor families need financial help. The central government should make a nationwide policy for workers and provide financial assistance," he said.

According to PTI sources, two floors of Parliament Annexe building have been sealed after an officer tested positive for Covid-19.

Two floors of Parliament Annexe building sealed after officer tests positive for COVID-19: Sources

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 29, 2020

Chinese civil aviation authorities plan to extend until June 30 their curbs on international flights, the US embassy in Beijing said in a travel advisory on Friday, Reuters reported. China has drastically cut such flights since March to allay concerns over infections brought by arriving passengers. A so-called "Five One" policy allows mainland carriers to fly just one flight a week on one route to any country and foreign airlines to operate just one flight a week to China. US airlines are not flying to China at all because they suspended services before the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration adopted the flight curbs.

A minister in West Bengal has tested positive for the virus, making it the first such case in the Mamata Banerjee-led state cabinet, PTI quoted a government source as saying. State Fire Services minister Sujit Bose has been advised to undergo home quarantine after his test results came out positive, the source said. A domestic help at the minister's residence was diagnosed with the disease, following which samples of Bose and his family members were sent for examination. The reports, which arrived on Thursday night, showed Bose and one of his family members have contracted the virus, the source added.

As a large number of trains with migrant labourers started reaching West Bengal post-Cyclone Amphan, the state government has now decided to modify its screening and monitoring protocols for those coming from different states. Before the cyclone had hit Bengal, the state used to send all returning migrant labourers to institutional quarantine, where they were provided food by the district administration. On Wednesday, the Health Department revised standard operating procedures (SOPs) with new screening rules an emphasis on home quarantine. However, the government has enlisted five states as ‘high-burden Covid states’ — Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu — and those coming from there will have to mandatorily stay in a 14-day institutional quarantine.

A 65-year old man died due to the virus at the Government Medical College Hospital in Kottayam in the early hours on Friday, taking the toll due to the disease in Kerala to eight, PTI reported. The man from Thiruvalla in Pathanamthitta district had severe diabetic related problems and tested positive for the coronavirus recently, days after returning from Sharjah in the Gulf where he was employed, officials said. After being treated initially at the General Hospital in Pathanamthittaa, he was referred to the Government Medical College Hospital on May 25 for providing him improved health-care. The patient was put on ventilator support on May 27 and he died at 2 am on Friday, the officials said.

With flight operations resuming, less than half the retail shops and food outlets inside the Mumbai airport have restarted their services with limited staff, albeit in two shifts instead of three. The Indian Express on Thursday visited the airport and found most shops operating with one or two employees. Even though business has been badly hit, the footfall has been encouraging, said shopowners. The airport, which has over 1,500 employees on its payroll, has been calling less than 30 per cent of the staffers to work, said officials. So far, the airport has operated over 190 flights, including arrivals and departures, catering to 19,652 passengers.

The Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) is on its 12th round of door-to-door health survey, which is likely to cover the entire 65 lakh population of the city, for early diagnosis of Covid-19 and timely treatment. The city, which is among the two hotspots in the state apart from Ahmedabad, identified over 140 people with symptoms of Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI), in the last round of survey, which is a huge dip from the first round which began during the first phase of lockdown. Among the three cities that account for nearly 88 per cent of Gujarat’s total Covid-19 cases, Surat has the highest recovery rate at 69.3 per cent, followed by Vadodara at 57 per cent and Ahmedabad at 44 per cent.

Robots are becoming vital in helping Japan in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Recently, the Tokyo metropolitan government unveiled robots that will be used in two hotels accommodating patients infected with the novel coronavirus. The aim is to efficiently clean the hotel which accepts asymptomatic patients or those having light symptom so as to decrease the burden on staff.

Nine persons were arrested and several others booked in Gopiganj area of Bhadohi on Thursday, a day after a group of villagers allegedly pelted stones and attacked health workers and policemen when they had gone to help with the cremation of a migrant worker. The 42-year-old had returned from Surat in a truck on Tuesday and died the same day at a hospital after his family members took him there. His Covid test report is awaited. Bhadohi SP Ram Badan Singh said, “There were rumours in Rampur Ghat that coronavirus may spread in the area if the body is cremated there. The attack happened around 6 pm on Wednesday. Stones and bricks were pelted at the police vehicle and ambulance.” The cremation was, however, completed the same evening.

Working from home has become the norm these days due to the COVID lockdown. Due to which, with most of us following the same routine daily. This becomes very tiring considering that you are not doing anything different, just getting to work. Even though you cannot get back to the office as of now, you can set up a small personal office in a corner of your room and do work as you would normally. This would help you stay focused when you are working and not feel lethargic while working on your bed with your laptop. Let us take a look at five tech accessories that you can order from Amazon or Flipkart right now to help build your own personal office at home.

The coronavirus tally in India on Friday rose to 1,65,799 on Friday. 

Global travel disruptions are the top concern for American businesses in China, of which many are cutting compensation and bonuses amid the fallout of the COVID epidemic, according to a report from a business group.Ninety percent of the 100 or so respondents said they were affected by such disruptions, up from 77% last month, according to a monthly survey on the impact of COVID by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, released Friday.Thousands of senior executives are stranded outside China, chamber chairman Greg Gilligan said in a news release."We will continue to work closely with the relevant government authorities in a bid to bring them back as soon as possible," he said.

For the past month, Brijesh Mistry’s 15-year-old daughter, a Class X student in Gujarat’s Vadodara, is waking up at 4.30 am to attend online classes in Casablanca, Morocco. “The schedule has begun to take a toll; she is struggling,” Mistry, 41, says. “The cost of Internet in Morocco is very high—almost Rs 500 per day—and my daughter has classes six days in the week… Besides, we have run out of most of the vegetarian food we brought from India,” says Mistry, a structural engineer. He is among 140 Indians stranded in Morocco since the North African country imposed a lockdown on March 20 due to the coronavirus outbreak. In neighbouring Algeria, nearly 150 Indians are seeking help from the government to return home.

The hotel and airline segments of the tourism industry, which are typically high fixed-cost sectors and have forgone revenue for almost a full quarter due to the impact of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown, are now accessing future revenues to tide over the short-term working capital deficit. While all airlines, which had to cancel flights on account of the lockdown, issued credit shells to passengers to make future bookings, some hotels are offering discounts for future bookings. Even as the airlines industry was completely shut for two months, with the exception of sporadic cargo flights, the hotel industry, too, has been operating at 10-15 per cent occupancy, with losses for these segments mounting on account of incurring fixed-costs. According to experts, a typical 200-room premium hotel needs to operate at an occupancy of 38-40 per cent to record a cash breakeven. Furthermore, unlike goods, which can be consumed later, a deferred service, like that in the hospitality industry, cannot be consumed later.

THREE GIRLS, including two infants, died over the last 48 hours in three separate quarantine centres across Chhattisgarh, with officials saying that two of the deaths were caused by asphyxiation while the children were being fed.

The third child, a four-month-old who died Thursday, had been ill for the last few days, and her Covid test result is awaited. The other two died on Wednesday, including an 18-month-old and three-month-old who, sources said, was “severely malnourished”. All the three were children of migrant workers who had returned to the state after the lockdown was eased. Read more

Former chief minister Ashok Chavan, who is recovering from Covid-19 at a Mumbai hospital, was among the senior Congress leaders from Maharashtra who shared a video message on Thursday as part of the party’s nationwide campaign to raise public support for those suffering as a result of the lockdown. Read more here

NCP MLA from Deolali, Saroj Ahire, tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, the day when Maharashtra reported 2,598 new cases, taking its total count to 59,546. The state also registered 85 deaths, increasing its toll to 1,982.

Ahire, a first-time MLA, said in a statement: “I, along with three of my family members, have been infected with coronavirus.” Said to have been infected at a funeral in Mumbai, Ahire had been in quarantine for the last few days. Read more here